


Cheat

by ppeacherine



Category: Code Geass
Genre: M/M, NSFW, a reverse smut: where it begins with sex and ends in tragedy, back at it again with the rarepairs, lelouch is actually just a mention but i couldn't find the tag, not actually that explicit dw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-08
Updated: 2019-11-08
Packaged: 2021-01-25 19:17:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21361351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ppeacherine/pseuds/ppeacherine
Summary: Suzaku has lost every war he's ever waged with Lelouch -- so what's one more attempt at pulling the pawn between them to his side before he admits defeat?A pseudo-AU fic where Suzaku gets to use his words for once instead of his fists. Warning that it starts off with some nsfw content to lay groundwork.
Relationships: Kururugi Suzaku/Rolo Lamperouge
Comments: 1
Kudos: 11





	Cheat

**Author's Note:**

> I only have one setting and it's like constantly starting new fics and then ending them and then starting them again, I am so sorry.
> 
> Pls note that when I write Code Geass all these characters are adults. They're all in their twenties. Get out of here with that teenager/preteen shenanigans I don't want it, it's too weird. Might revise in the future to strengthen the first two segments because I wrote it... totally backwards, which is why the styles don't line-up.

He wants to say he’s made worse mistakes in his life — and he definitely has. But he hasn’t made any as socially (or professionally) catastrophic as this one. In the moment, though, it didn’t feel like one. It felt relieving, in the same way an ice bath took the edge off his training or a hot shower felt after spending hours trapped in the cockpit of the Lancelot.

Rolo said it would, but not in so many words. He said he was  _ worried,  _ because Suzaku was so on edge while on the Ashford campus. Always looking over his shoulder and chasing Lelouch’s shadows when that was the job of one requisitioned assassin from the Directorate. 

Maybe Rolo just didn’t like being usurped, and right now, he was more in control than Suzaku was.

He had intended for it to be a simple conversation — harmless and to the point. Something to finally get the tension out of their interactions. It wasn’t like there were genuine secrets between them about their situation. Rolo knew about Julius, just like he knew about Lelouch. He knew about Suzaku and Lelouch’s history. He knew about Euphemia, he knew about all of it,

And he didn’t have any words for it. He was content to let it exist.

Suzaku felt the side of the bed compress beside him while he leaned over his knees, thinking over some stupid, meaningless something-or-other he had let slip, and in his anxiety, he’d already forgotten what it was. Rolo didn’t offer him a shoulder to cry on, didn’t offer to cheer him up or try to distract him. He didn’t tell Suzaku his feelings were justified, or that he was doing the right thing. He let him sit and simmer, smoldering in the terrible feelings he’d unearthed in himself.

That’s how they stayed — how they _should _have stayed. Maybe he was too deep in his own head, maybe he didn’t think to keep his guard up high enough around a known saboteur of the Empire, but whatever the case Rolo was on top of him and he was holding his waist and he’d never seen himself having sex with a _practical stranger _at any point in his life, but he thinks this only has one end.

And his heart doesn’t know how to feel about it, but his mind does.

He’s pretty sure Rolo met him halfway in the initial kiss, but he’s still not sure who made the first move in the haze of the moment. Rolo’s fingers are splayed across his bare chest, and he keeps him pinned down while their mouths work together. His hands move to unbutton Rolo’s own shirt, but the other stops him gently, barely breaking their rhythm,

Right then, it didn’t seem strange or odd. He figures later that it was the idea of being vulnerable, or that Suzaku might try to take something Rolo wasn’t willing to give. Instead, he runs his fingers across the other’s cheek, then through his hair, and props his back up against the headboard.

He felt clumsy and unfamiliar in the heat of his own body, of feelings he’d repressed since bad encounters with Lelouch or one-off, secret kisses with Euphie. And Rolo doesn’t seem to mind. He’s patient and gentle, kissing under Suzaku’s jawline while helping him with his belt and hands. Something in the back of Suzaku’s mind tells him he should be wondering why Rolo is  _ so comfortable  _ with this arrangement, but he doesn’t say it, and he won’t say it now that his cock is exposed to the relatively cool air of the space between them.

It goes quicker than he ever expected it would, but no less rewarding. He feels… warm, and content, and he pants against Rolo’s lips before the other pulls away finally, pulling Suzaku’s discarded button-down from beside them so they could wipe their hands off.

“You’re not the stingy type, are you?”

“...Hm? Oh. No, it’s fine,” Suzaku feels a flush crawl over his cheeks and chest.  _ Now  _ he decides to feel embarrassed, since he’s the only one exposed, and… Well,

Rolo perfectly lands the balled-up shirt in a wastebasket beside one of the dormitory desks, moving to clamber off of the less-than-pristine Knight of Seven before his wrist is grabbed (and he immediately curls his other hand into a fist on reflex).

“Sorry— I, it just seemed strange to… I mean, do you want me to…”

Suzaku isn’t sure why Rolo looks so surprised.

——

Over the next month or so at Ashford, he tries to figure out Rolo’s idiosyncrasies. He doesn’t like Suzaku to take his clothes off, and prefers to focus exclusively on his partner. They never go further than what happened the first time, and Rolo never lets Suzaku into his room (but that, that’s reasonable. The worst case scenario was Lelouch finding out, and that couldn’t happen).

He doesn’t know if they’re supposed to be exclusive or not, but he doesn’t ask. Even whenever he feels his veins light up with anxiety and  _ fear  _ when Rolo presses too close to Gino to distract him from something or whispers too near to the ear of Shirley to get her to sputter out gossip she won’t tell the council.

Rolo is his subordinate. What he’s doing with him is wrong —- even if Rolo seems okay with it. Even if he doesn’t flinch away when Suzaku touches his hip when no one is looking and they’re close, even if Rolo doesn’t mind when Suzaku is feeling foolish enough to lean down and kiss his temple when he’s focused on something in the surveillance room.

He tells himself it’s testing the waters, but even he knows there’s a selfish part of him that enjoys the  _ idea  _ that they  _ are  _ something (Even if they really aren’t).

Arthur is purring on a pillow behind Rolo’s head after one of their trysts, with Suzaku resting his head on the assassin’s shirt. Someone would probably laugh knowing he was the little spoon, but right now it’s just them where it’s safe. Where he’s not questioning Zero’s next move or whether or not Zero resurrected really  _ is  _ Lelouch (but deep down, he thinks he always knew it was).

It takes focus to hear Rolo’s heartbeat through his mussed shirt, and his eyebrows furrow down when he counts the gentle, if confused, beats. He’s been hooked up to enough EKGs and taken enough general anatomy to know something is wrong, and after taking a breath for courage,

“Do you… have a condition, Rolo?”

The other’s eyes flash open, and he startles up enough that Arthur leaps off the bed with a disturbed hiss. “It’s nothing-”

“No, it’s something. I just want to make sure you’re alright,”

A beat. More even than the ones he had been listening to.

“Is that why you won’t let me touch you?”

Suzaku doesn’t really think that’s where things began to go South. Rolo finally let him reciprocate their meetings —

And then he was gone. Suzaku already knew what had happened when he became impossible to reach.

  
  


———

  
  


This wasn’t the first time Rolo had been caught off-guard in the surveillance room at Ashford.

He’d slipped through the door after swiping a stolen keycard, and immediately set to work removing a small silver case from a belted pouch at his thigh. Infiltrating a system he’d already been part of wouldn’t be so hard (even if all his user data had been deleted,) but he should have realized the only things that went easy for him involved Geass and murder.

He inhales slowly, eyelids falling shut as the pressure on his neck increased. It wasn’t clever enough to be an ambush. Someone had just expected him to be there, despite weeks of tapping camera feeds to ensure this exact scenario did not happen.

“I wish I could say I was surprised,” Suzaku doesn’t sound sad, just disappointed. His lips are so close to Rolo’s ear that the other is able to feel him sigh.

“The footage was pre-recorded,” Rolo responds plainly. At first, he thinks to move his gloved hands up — he knows how to get out of this grip, and it would be even easier with his Geass. One quick movement, but Suzaku’s forearm tenses again, and the stronger man holds him tighter against him.

Rolo lets his arms drop, opening his eyes. He keeps his head as defiantly forward as he can manage with the growing pain in his neck. His eyebrows furrow, deliberating on the likelihood of him not leaving this situation alive. It wasn’t like Suzaku to kill someone and be done with it, he was too merciful and careful. Even if personal interaction hadn’t told Rolo that, battle reports certainly did. He gives himself a few seconds to prepare to use his Geass--

A sudden shove ushers him forward, knocking the wind out of him when his ribs painfully knock against the edge metal conference desk. He doesn’t give himself time to gasp or sputter, instead inhaling quickly and spinning to face the other. He doesn’t hesitate this time to pull the pistol out of his shoulder holster — but it only serves to make Suzaku’s frown deepen.

“Yes. Everything was set up in case you — or anyone else Lelouch recruited — came back,” Suzaku shows Rolo his open, raised palms while taking a slow, calculated step towards him. He doesn’t think Rolo is prone to startling, but he doesn’t have any reservations that unlike himself (his  _ real  _ self, without Lelouch’s command branded into his head), Rolo wouldn’t hesitate to shoot him if he felt his life was in actual jeopardy. Because that’s all that really mattered to him - continuing to live and being useful to somebody. Suzaku feels his stomach knot with more than adrenaline.

“It’s been a spliced loop for a while,” the gun remains trained on his heart, his an infinitely easier target with only a couple feet between them. “I just hoped that it wouldn’t be you.”

He’s sincere and angry in equal amounts, forcing his expression to stay level despite his growing urge to curl his lips at the whole situation. It’s not surprising anymore that Lelouch tricked anyone else to do his bidding, or even that he got his claws into someone Suzaku felt an inkling of affection for. That’s how it always was now, wasn’t it? He’d get something nice and Lelouch would find a way to destroy it.

Unfortunately, he’s never been more clever than Lelouch. He knows he has one weapon in this situation and it’s what always made them different. He could change this — he could beat out Lelouch in a battle of influences. Nobody had to die.

Rolo’s aim doesn’t shake and his gaze doesn’t flinch as Suzaku takes one more step towards him. If he took another, he’d come too close to disarming distance, and he knows Rolo won’t take that risk without something in exchange, or distraction. “What did he promise you, Rolo?”

“Does it matter to you?”

“I think… I think he must have done something substantial if he got you to turn against the Directorate. Britannia,” he speaks levelly, pausing between words, “Me.” 

He wants to believe he saw a reaction flash for a microsecond in those bright eyes, illuminated to a familiar navy with the light from the monitors. Rolo is personal —  _ make it personal.  _ “It was something the agency couldn’t give you, right? Something you thought even the Knight of Seven couldn’t give you, even if you asked.”

They both know he’s fishing, but Suzaku suffered enough in his childhood to know exactly what it was. If he were better with words than emotions, he’d be more tactful about it, but he isn’t. So he doesn’t try: “You needed out of the Directorate-”

He hears the safety on the gun click without the slightest tremble. 

Rolo sneers for just a moment, but the gesture is pained. “I wouldn’t try to go head-to-head with the Directorate, Kururugi. I wasn’t going to ask you to wage war with the emperor’s own brother when I already had an out. Especially not to spare your feelings.”

“You saw what Lelouch did to  _ everyone  _ in that facility. Even people you thought were family,” he loses control of his tone for just a moment, the dismay seeping through unwanted emphasis, “he cut them down like they were—”  _ one more step, _

“Because  _ you  _ could have saved them?!” The other man is incredulous, caught off-guard by the sudden jab to an emotional wound that had been festering for some time. “People die. Even people you thought you cared about.”

“You didn’t  _ think  _ you cared about them,  _ you did _ .” Suzaku counters, furrowing his eyebrows down. “Just like you weren’t avoiding sparing me from anything, were you, Rolo? You were sparing yourself. Because that’s all you know how to do, isn’t it?” His words rush more than he intends, but it’s hard to keep calm in front of a bold-faced lie. All the missed calls, all the diversions, all the time spent awake  _ wondering,  _ it hits him at once in a spiteful torrent. He tells himself not to lose control because he hurts, but it’s so hard.

He closes the gap between them finally, without hesitation. The Geass imprint burns him each step of the way, but he is more than capable of handling it. The barrel of the gun rests against his chest and he doesn’t try to budge. He could gamble like anyone else, and he had miraculous luck in his favor. He inhales when the barrel digs into the muscle, Rolo pointedly pushing it deeper with their proximity.

“And I know I mean too much to you for you to kill. You won’t hurt me.”

“You don’t know  _ shit,  _ Suzaku,” Rolo shouts, and Suzaku taken aback because he doesn’t think the other has tried to be vulnerable in his anger before. He’s always covered it up one way or another - turning it to jealous side glances or fake smiles. Lowering his voice to sweet whispers to keep control like he was probably raised. 

Suzaku takes both his hands around Rolo’s, heavy and rough, and forces him to hold the gun steady over his heart when he tries to turn away. When he tries to escape. 

“You won’t hurt me,”

“ _ I might,” _

“You’re not some kind of animal. And even if it wasn’t you… Lelouch told you you couldn’t, didn’t he?” Maybe in any other situation, Suzaku would be impressed with himself for making it this far. A younger, haughtier version of himself might have bragged, even. He feels Rolo try to pull away again, backing against the table and stopping when he realizes he’s trapped. In the game of outcomes, Rolo’s lost. 

Suzaku manages a soft smile, very slowly unwrapping his fingers from the other. “But… I know it’s you. Or… maybe I want to believe that, because that way how badly it felt when I realized the truth would finally make sense.”

Rolo keeps his gaze turned away, and he deliberates reaching to touch his face or shoulders, but ultimately he does nothing. He lets Rolo stare askew to the floor, even though it’s as heartbreaking to see him defeated as it is infuriating he betrayed him.

It wasn’t even about Britannia, or his duty as a knight.

He sighs, “because I knew I couldn’t do the same to you. I couldn’t hurt you, Rolo. And I couldn’t betray you, either. Did you even think about that? Was there ever an  _ if,  _ where you asked?”

“No. Because the only people who win against the Directorate are armies — or C.C. I didn’t deserve… I don’t deserve to have you die for me.”

Rolo looks back up at him then, withdrawing the pistol closer to himself and laying his index finger parallel to the trigger. “We’re not confidants. Or friends, Suzaku. We’re not lovers.” 

He hears regret, and he sees it in the way Rolo’s shoulders draw forward as if to protect himself from his own admission. This time, he doesn’t hesitate to reach for the other’s face, and Rolo doesn’t pull away. He closes his eyes and tilts into the touch.

“Maybe we could be, though. Still.”

Wouldn’t that be a riot? The idea of actually settling down once everything was over, with the assassin sent to replace one of his closest friends and who had joined the line of people who had stabbed him in the back. That’s what the reflexive, cynical part of his mind says. But his heart tells him it would be nice. It would be nice to have someone that was just as absolutely fucked to pass time with. To not have to worry about covering up his damages to. To not have to wonder if they would burn themselves out trying to  _ fix  _ him from all this trauma, and eventually give up, when all he wanted was—

Rolo opens his eyes again, and that’s when Suzaku knows he’s lost. He didn’t lose the battle — no, confronting Rolo, stopping the database crack, that all went spectacularly. But he lost the war, and he sees it in how tired and wounded the other’s eyes are. 

“I’ll make this easy for you, Suzaku,” Rolo finally says after a thunderous silence. He pushes himself off of the table, bringing them almost nose-to-nose, breath-to-breath, and Suzaku doesn’t protest or try to stop him. He knows what’s coming.

He closes his eyes to make the sudden change less jarring, and opens them to the surveillance room being entirely empty. It’s always a little dizzying, Rolo’s Geass, disorienting in the strangest way — but that might also just be the horrible pit growing in his stomach. He braces himself against the table, letting out a heavy sigh. The stubborn side of him tells him he should chase after the other, argue better, incentivize better,  _ use something other than his fucking emotions. _

He doesn’t.

He moves a chair and falls into the seat, covering his eyes with one hand.

It’s over, and again Lelouch has stolen something else from him. He wasn’t enough for anything, was he?

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
